Kelly picks her mother to appear at the school’s Mother-Daughter Career Day, which obliges Peggy to perform motherhood in public, and Peggy’s solution is to bring her own equipment. Her couch, her side table and her remote control all turn up in the classroom, which the episode never explains and does not need to. Al, meanwhile, has decided to teach Bud the value of a dollar by putting him to work at the shoe store.
The classroom scene is one of the best jokes the series ever constructed about Peggy, because it is not a lie. She demonstrates her actual working life accurately and in detail, and it is the career she has chosen. The episode is careful not to shame her for it; the comedy is in the gap between what the school expected and what it got.
Al’s half supplies the series’ only hard figures on his pay. He works on commission, and he spells out the arithmetic: on a twenty-dollar sale his commission is $1.97, and after taxes, social security and Peggy, he keeps a nickel. It is the most precise accounting of Al Bundy’s finances the show ever offered.
It is also the third of Jade’s four appearances, played by Teri Weigel. Peggy and Kelly both reveal, separately, that neither of them knows her natural hair colour. And this is the last episode in which Bud’s skateboard is visible on the staircase: the prop went on to be used in an episode of the ABC sitcom Free Spirit, produced by some of the same people, and starring Edan Gross, who had already appeared on this series twice.
Episode Facts
- Original air date: February 26, 1989
- Season 3, Episode 12, and the 47th episode of the series
- Written by Lesa Kite, Cindy Begel and Jan Rosenbloom
- Directed by Gerry Cohen
Guest Cast
- Teri Weigel as Jade
- Teri Ralston as Judge Spivak
- Julie Condra as Becky
- Deborah Levin as Susan
Mother-Daughter Career Day
The shoe store half contains the single most precise piece of Bundy economics in the series: Al explains that on a twenty dollar sale his commission is a dollar ninety-seven, and after tax, social security and Peggy, he keeps a nickel.
Jade turns up for the third time. Teri Weigel played her in four episodes, and this is the one where she arrives dressed for summer in the middle of a Chicago winter.
Famous Quotes
- Al: “You don’t leave a jacket! You leave your hopes, your dreams, if you’re lucky, your family, but you got to take care of your jacket!” Al on priorities.
- Kelly: “When I grow up, I wanna be just like you. I wanna do nothing. I wanna be nothing.” Kelly, sincerely, to her mother.
- Bud: “Tell me again this lesson I’ll never forget, because I already know how to go to the bathroom.” Bud, on his first day at Gary’s Shoes.
Notes
- Jade’s third appearance, after The Great Escape and Father Lode.
- Julie Condra came back in season 8 as a different character in “Valentine’s Day Massacre.”
- Both Peg and Kelly state that neither of them knows her natural hair colour.
- Last episode in which Bud’s skateboard is visible on the staircase.
- Goof: nobody explains how the couch and coffee table got to the school and back, with Al and Bud both at work.
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